Target parents to help kids in poverty

In a recent column, George Will reported results of two studies: first, it is nearly impossible for children raised in poverty to achieve success; second, a likely cause is that 2-year-old children, raised in poverty, have heard only 12 million words spoken to them by parents, compared to twice that many for children of middle-income families and four times that many if kids have two professional parents.

A 2011 study by the Department of Health and Human Services reluctantly showed that its own $8 billon program, Head Start, aimed at 3- and 4-year-old children, produces no significant long-lasting benefit.

These results show that no amount of free lunches, progress tests in schools, teacher's performance pay, Common Core, work training, free college or aid to poverty families can change the fate of children who have not received full and proper interaction with family before age 2 or 3.

If governments and individuals can simply accept this fact, all is not lost.

While continuing to provide basic needs for those now in poverty, government programs can be consolidated, reworked and developed to include poverty-bound parents as well as their infants, birth to age 3, as a pre-requisite for public aid. This "day care with parents" approach would serve to provide helpful training for young poverty parents and it places government spending at the heart of the poverty problem, the development of newborns for success later in life.

Ron Gore

Covington

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Target parents to help kids in poverty

In a recent column, George Will reported results of two studies: first, it is nearly impossible for children raised in poverty to achieve success; second, a likely cause is that 2-year-old children,